Head for Beach at Rush Hour? Might Work

By Steven Ginsberg
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 26, 2006

It goes against everything travel experts tell drivers -- leave early, stay late, avoid rush hour at all costs -- but the best time to leave town to avoid traffic on this and every other weekend of summer fun may just be 5 p.m. Friday.

Enough people heed the advice about getaway days that drivers are just as likely to hit a lengthy backup in the morning or early afternoon as they are during the regular Friday rush, traffic experts say. And sometimes a traffic jam snags them the day before or the day after. So drivers are adjusting.

"People are going in what is traditionally the rush hour because it no longer is the rush hour," said John Townsend, spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic, which predicts that one in 10 Washingtonians will leave the area this Memorial Day weekend. "They're saying, counterintuitively, that what used to be rush hour may be the greatest getaway time because everyone else is going at another time."

That's exactly what Douglas Macintyre is hoping for. He and his family are traveling from Rockville to Virginia Beach today for a weekend softball tournament involving his daughter. His wife wanted to leave about noon to beat traffic, but Macintyre resisted.

"She leans towards taking the kids out of school and getting an early jump," Macintyre said. "I question whether that's even helpful. I think a lot of people leave at noontime. I'm kind of hopeful that leaving at rush hour and taking the HOV lanes will save me some time."

Still, many travel experts warned against leaving during the conventional rush.

Chris Landis, who manages the Virginia Department of Transportation's Smart Traffic Center, agreed that traffic has gotten worse earlier on getaway days. But he said: "I definitely would not condone or recommend people who are traveling to go out of town during rush hour. The only thing you can do is leave even earlier than what was early before."

Kelly Melhem, spokeswoman for the Maryland Transportation Authority, had similar advice for those crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge on their way to the beach.

But Melhem said traffic is shifting. The number of people using the bridge on Fridays was down slightly last summer, she said, and a midday Saturday rush began to form.

"We don't want to move traffic from one peak travel time to another," Melhem said. "The goal is to spread out traffic."

Valerie Burnette Edgar, a spokeswoman for the Maryland State Highway Administration, said that elsewhere in the state, "we definitely see more people at an earlier commute, to the extent that sometimes [rush hour] even ends earlier."

Even Townsend said he is not quite ready to tell people to leave at 5 o'clock, if only because the idea is so radical.

"We're still clinging to the notion of leave early and stay late," he said, though he added that drivers should check radio reports and traffic Web sites to determine whether those truly are the best times to leave.

A survey by AAA found that a half-million Washingtonians will travel at least 50 miles this weekend, launching another summer of American-style road-tripping even in the face of $3-a-gallon gas. Those numbers, culled from a national survey of 1,500 people, represent a slight increase from last year despite an 86-cent boost in the average price of a gallon of gas.

Although it seems that rising gas prices won't stop Washingtonians from taking their vacations, the survey found that people are responding -- either planning to go for fewer days or to stay closer to home.

In an online MapQuest survey, nearly 70 percent of participating Washingtonians said gas prices were affecting their plans, and a third said they were traveling significantly less or canceling trips altogether. Still, the survey found that slightly more than half of Washingtonians plan to travel at some point this summer.

A separate MapQuest survey identified Washington as the fourth-hardest city to escape, after Los Angeles, Philadelphia and New York. Clevelanders might be happy to know that their city is the easiest to flee.

The legions of tourists coming to Washington this summer might be interested to know that the nation's capital was voted the second-toughest city to navigate, trailing only Houston.

Many travelers will be getting away by plane this weekend. The AAA survey found that local air travel will rise about 3 percent from a year ago, and the Air Transport Association predicts a national increase of about 2 percent.

"Last summer was a record, and we expect this summer to top those numbers," said David A. Castelveter, a spokesman for ATA. "Planes will be full for people going on vacation."

Officials at Washington area airports advised passengers to arrive early and expect long lines, especially early mornings and late afternoons Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays. Parking is likely to be very difficult at Reagan National Airport, where the lots have filled several times this year.

Few people are likely to go to the lengths that Colin Peppard will to avoid traffic.

First, the Adams Morgan resident plans to get up at 5 a.m. today and drive to the Virginia Railway Express station in Manassas. From there, he will take the train back into Washington to work. At 5:40 p.m., he will ride the train back to Manassas to try to get beyond the worst traffic. Then he hopes to drive to West Virginia in time to nab a campsite before they're all gone.

Peppard goes to West Virginia often, but he always drives at night. He's flirted with the idea of driving right from work when he gets off at 5 p.m., but he can't quite pull the trigger.

"I've never checked that theory out because I've been terrified to," Peppard said.

But he said it "might be something worth trying sometime. In the last two years, I've seen traffic at 9 or 10 o'clock definitely increase."